The Celtic Rising: David Potter on The Day Everything Changed – Part 2

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The Celtic Star

·24 de abril de 2026

The Celtic Rising: David Potter on The Day Everything Changed – Part 2

Part 2 of an extract from David Potter’s wonderful bestseller The Celtic Rising. The Celtic Rising got underway on this day in 1965 when Celtic won the Scottish Cup Final, against Dunfermline our first trophy of the decade. It would not be the last…

Celtic, Scottish Cup winners 1965. Photo The Celtic Wiki

And so the great day dawned. It was a bright, pleasant spring day, but it was not like any other spring day. Was this to be the day of deliverance, or was it to join the previous four Scottish Cup finals in its crushing disappointment? It was probably the case that Dunfermline were the better side – their League position certainly indicated that – but on the other hand, as the perspicacious Celtic supporters kept pointing out – they could not win last week against St Johnstone when they had to win to keep themselves in the League race.

Vídeos OneFootball

Yet their men were all fit today and in Willie Cunningham they had an able Manager and tactician. They still had two men left from their win in 1961 – Alex Smith and Harry Melrose, whereas Celtic had five in Billy McNeill, John Clark, Charlie Gallagher, John Hughes and Steve Chalmers. But of course, the key thing was that Jock Stein had changed sides.

The journey to Glasgow for supporters that bright Saturday morning was animated with a surprising amount of conversation about who was going to win the League, rather than the Cup. There was still in 1965 among Celtic supporters a general respect (not exactly love or affection, however) for Hearts and a general dislike of Kilmarnock, who wore blue, were managed by Willie Waddell and had “kicked Billy and Boaby aff the park” that awful day last August at Rugby Park.

So if Hearts won, drew or even lost 0-1 today, they would win the League and that would not necessarily be the worst outcome in the world. “Ah dinnae like them, mind, but at least they are no’ Rangers!” Pleasure was then expressed at the almost total collapse of Rangers this season.

Celtic parade the Scottish Cup at Hampden Park, after their 3-2 victory over Dunfermline. l-r Bertie Auld, Ian Young, Billy McNeill, Steve Chalmers, John Clark, Tommy Gemmell, Bobby Lennox, Bobby Murdoch, John Hughes, John Fallon, Charlie Gallagher 26th April 1965. Photo TopFoto

It was immediately obvious in the streets of Glasgow that morning as one disembarked at Buchanan Street railway station that there was a special atmosphere in the air. Lewis’s Polytechnic was full of green and white scarves, tammies and favours, and fewer black and white ones. But it was friendly with loads of banter. There are some teams’ supporters with whom Celtic fans get on well and Dunfermline were one of them.

Old grannies decked in the black and white were seen to put arms round wee Celtic boys, asking where they came from and what was their favourite TV programme, did they like the Beatles and of course the vital question of “Who was going to win today?” Old Celtic supporters told younger Pars ones that they remembered Peter Wilson becoming Dunfermline’s manager before the war. The young Dunfermline boys were impressed, but clearly did not have a clue who Peter Wilson was.

Lunch was consumed but not always digested. Such were the nerves and the excitement of the day. The lunchtime edition of The Evening Citizen was reassuring. “Even if, by some unkind quirk of fate, the Cup is not wearing green and white ribbons tonight, things will soon change at Parkhead,” but the focus was all on today.

The Celtic Rising – 1965, Celtic beat Rangers 2-1 in the League Cup Final on 23 October 1965. Photo The Celtic Wiki

At Central Station, awaiting the Blue Train (they might have changed the colour for one day!), we saw women with shopping, young men with cricket bats (they were getting a good day for the start of the season) and other people wandering around aimlessly as people sometimes do at railway stations, looking perhaps for friends of the opposite sex who had failed to appear, but the largest proportion of the crowd wore green and white.

The destination was Mount Florida. If the opposition had been Rangers, we would never have dared to take that train, for Mount Florida was at the western or “Rangers” end of Hampden. It would have had to be King’s Park, but that was not a problem today. A well-dressed man, a pleasant faced but somewhat apprehensive woman, and two wee boys with black and white Dunfermline Athletic scarves got on. It was clearly their first time at Hampden.

A group of beery green and whites came on and the Pars family feared the worst. But one of the Celtic chaps with few teeth bent down and said to one of the youngsters, “And what’s your name?” Before we knew where we were, the conversation was all about holidays in Fife, “my granny came frae a place called Cairneyhill (dae ye ken it?)” and “I hope we get a good gemme the day.”

Ian Young (far left) celebrating with his Celtic teammates at the 1965 Scottish Cup Final

The wee boys grew in confidence, said they didn’t like Rangers, and the father told everyone that he knew the Callaghan brothers who were playing for Dunfermline today. He also said that in their spare time, the brothers were Celtic daft – but that was hardly a great secret. A few other Celtic fans started singing a song which had a bad word or two in it – and one of the Celtic fans shouted “Hey! Cut it oot! There’s a wuman here wi twa young laddies!” His moral stance was somewhat undermined by the fact that some other women, dressed in green, were joining in the blasphemous and obscene singing, but it was a brave effort.

Meanwhile, the mother was being relentlessly chatted up by a Celtic fan who was not unattractive but clearly past the first flush of youth. We got all the usual Glasgow dance hall chat-up patter about her hairstyle and “I wish I’d met you before he did” jabbing his thumb at the now totally relaxed and smiling father. Not only that, but “the next time we’re in Dunfermline, ah’m comin’ roon tae your hoose for a cup o’ tea.”

The precocious older boy, clearly an expert in such matters, then said that Celtic would be at East End Park on Wednesday night – providing of course, that today was not a draw. There was then a general feeling expressed that today might well be a draw “like the lest time, aw’ for anither big gate.”

The train, which had seemed to be saying “Cel-tic” repeatedly on its whistle, arrived at Mount Florida. The Dunfermline family were all wished well, the mother by no means discouraging of a wee kiss from the Celtic charmer, and the two wee boys were clearly in awe of Celtic supporters at their best, and repeated their feelings about not liking Rangers, while adding Falkirk and Raith Rovers to their list of un-favourite football teams.

It was great to walk up to Hampden Park in the dry on a fine day. No mud, no urine and your shoes unsullied. That old North Stand was showing its age, though, wasn’t it? But five shillings (no Boys Gate) was the price for admission to the Celtic end – that massive area of terracing which had seen so much action in Scottish football history and was destined to see a great deal more today.

Two things struck me about the view from the top of the Celtic End, and they were to do with what was happening away from the pitch. One was the amount of “dead body” fans who had not managed to get into the ground in a totally vertical position and had collapsed through the sheer amount of drink that they had consumed!

They were laid out gently but thankfully by their friends on the banking at the back of the terracing, and lay there, presumably, for the duration of the game! I counted about 12 such people and wondered how it was possible for anyone to get themselves more or less comatose with drink on a day like this! And what would have happened to them if it had been raining?

And the other thing I saw was a sight that excited both pity and envy. Behind Hampden at the Celtic End in 1965 were allotments for those of the horticultural persuasion. I looked down and I saw a man who was planting potatoes, or whatever one does with allotments.

My contempt for this man – how could anyone work in a garden a hundred yards away from this? – soon changed to jealousy when I considered the state I was in, quivering like a jelly, perpetually needing the toilet and finding it difficult to resist the temptation to be sick. This man on the other hand, with his braces holding up his trousers and his old jacket and bonnet hanging from a post, was working away in total relaxation although it must have been difficult with all the noise around him.

But now the ground was filling up. We knew that the crowd becomes less condensed the further down you go, and the late arrivals are often crushed so we tried to descend the mighty terracing which was becoming more congested by the minute. A group with no scruples pushed its way through singing the song about the lorry load of volunteers who approached the border town on New Year’s Eve eight years ago. We grabbed a hold of one of their flags, followed them down and got a good view.

The tension was palpable. Apparently, the radio at lunchtime had mentioned a rumour about an unexpected injury in the Celtic camp. This was discussed at length, but when the team was announced it was as expected. I had a look at the supporters near me, some clearly veterans of the Cup finals of Jimmy McGrory and Patsy Gallacher, many now approaching middle age who recalled Charlie Tully, many like me who had not yet had any clear recollection of them ever having won anything, and some even younger.

There were men and women – the women often more garishly dressed in green than the men, again some old, some young, some trying to look younger than they were – but everything had this in common – the stress and pressure on their faces. “We’ll forgive everything, Cellic, everything, if ye’s jist win the day.” There had indeed been an awful lot to forgive.

The Evening Times reports some strange behaviour by the Dunfermline Manager Willie Cunningham. The team bus arrived well over an hour before kick-off and the party of 16 players were all hustled into the away dressing-room (Celtic had won the toss for the home dressing-room, apparently) and stayed there until they emerged down the tunnel at 2.55pm. The Directors went upstairs for their refreshments with their Celtic counterparts, but the players were nowhere to be seen.

Just what was behind this, we cannot tell. Maybe Cunningham had not yet finalised his team selection; maybe he just did not want them talking to the Press; maybe he did not want them to see the massive Celtic support, which was building up, but in any case, their players were deprived of their walk on the Hampden turf.

No-one would have thought it significant at the time, but Pars’ centre-forward Alex Ferguson was dropped, presumably being blamed for Dunfermline’s inability to beat St Johnstone last weekend. It must have been a major blow for the youngster, whose playing career in Scottish football did not always enjoy the best of luck nor the greatest success. The team chosen, however, was the team that had beaten Rangers some ten days ago, and it was clearly this one on whom Dunfermline placed their major hopes for success.

David Potter

To be continued on The Celtic Star today…

An extract from The Celtic Rising by the late, great David Potter.

David’s bestseller The Celtic Rising ~ 1965: The Year Jock Stein Changed Everything is completely sold out in print on but is available on Amazon kindle, with all the photographs of the hardback edition, for HALF PRICE at just £3.49…

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